


Code Blue

by Calicocats45



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Surgeons AU, there will be holtzbert but it will be slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7882624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calicocats45/pseuds/Calicocats45
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surgeon AU: Dr. Erin Gilbert is a cardiothoracic surgeon transferred to Rowan North Memorial Hospital. Along the way she reunites with someone from her past who isn't entirely thrilled to see her, and meets a particularly endearing kooky blonde orthopaedic surgeon that she can't seem to get out of her head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

Erin Gilbert was a good cardiothoracic surgeon.

  
If she were feeling particularly modest that day, she may even say she was a great cardiothoracic surgeon. It wasn’t arrogance or narcissism with which she would say it, though; it was just factual. She was at the top of all her classes, both when she was earning her bachelor’s in biology and in medical school, and during her residency when she was the one the attendings vyed for when they needed someone to scrub in on a particularly challenging case. So, yes, she was indeed a very good cardiothoracic surgeon.  
So why the hell did she feel so damn nervous?

  
Admittedly, her new workplace was a bit daunting. She had just transferred from Whitecross, a small hospital in a small city in a particularly unpopulated area in West Virginia, to her new home in New York, a hospital by the name of Rowan North Memorial. She’d looked up the man from which the hospital’s name was derived just before booking her flight to New York, figuring it might come up at some point or another. Apparently, the man was an absolutely brilliant neurosurgeon who had conducted a thirty-four hour long brain tumour resection despite being exposed to the intense radiation required for the surgery the entire time. The hospital hadn’t even allowed him to do it, but North had been insane enough to go behind their backs and perform it regardless. Miraculously, the patient had survived (only to die of ovarian cancer three years later), but North had died of radiation poisoning mere hours following the completion of his surgery.

  
Pushing open the glass doors, each reading in translucent letters ‘Rowan North Memorial Hospital’, she took in the magnificent building. It was so unlike her tiny former workplace; rather, it was bustling with people scurrying from one place to another, but it still held that eerie quiet that hospitals often did. Hospitals were odd in that, though there could be such a huge number of people inside at once, chatter was always minimal. Doctors rarely said any more than a few words in passing, too busy to stop and have legitimate conversation, and family members of patients often just sat with that same worried expression everyone has when they sit in the waiting room of a hospital.  
The hospital itself was gorgeous. The majority of the ceiling was a sunroof, allowing the natural light of the afternoon sun to illuminate the building. The architecture was modern, with a gorgeous staircase that spiraled a bit as it ascended and a bridge connecting the west wing of the hospital with the east. Her dilemma now, however, was figuring out where in this massive hospital the chief of surgery’s office was.

  
“You look kinda lost, can I help you?” Erin spun around at the question, the new voice startling her.

  
Before her stood a tall woman with dark skin and a warm smile. Considering the lab coat she was wearing, Erin figured she must work here, so she held out her hand for the other woman to shake.

  
“Dr. Erin Gilbert,” she introduced herself.

  
Patty took her hand, shaking it eagerly. “Oh, you’re that new cardio attending,” she grinned, “Dr. Patty Tolan, head of general surgery. You must be looking for the chief’s office, yeah?”

  
Erin nodded, and Patty patted her back lightly, indicating for Erin to follow her as she began up the large stairwell. She wouldn’t admit that she was a bit out of breath following her first trip up, but Patty noticed regardless.

  
“You get used to it,” she said amusedly, and Erin just nodded, not wanting to risk sounding too tired just from ascending the stairwell.

  
She followed Patty across the bridge towards the east wing, smiling at a few of the surgeons and nurses she passed by. She figured she may as well start being friendly with her coworkers early, but each of them were in such a rush that they didn’t even notice her.

  
“Where’d you work before coming here?” Patty asked conversationally.

  
“Whitecross,” she said, then spoke again when Patty didn’t seem to recognize the name, “it’s a pretty small hospital, I doubt anyone here has actually heard of it.”

  
“Going from a place like that to a place like this must be quite the leap,” Patty said, resting her hands in the pockets of her lab coat.

  
Erin nodded, noticing how out of place she felt in her regular clothes among the sea of lab coats and scrubs. “You could say that,” she answered.

  
Whitecross had been one of those workplaces where everyone knew everyone. You smiled at everyone you passed, and if you weren’t busy, you might even stop to exchange hellos. Even the patients were often familiar faces, a few of which had been on a first name basis with Erin. Based on the sheer number of staff buzzing around Rowan North, however, she figured it wouldn’t quite be the same case.

  
A sharp beeping sound came from Patty’s pager, and she looked concerned as she retrieved it from her hip. “911,” she told Erin, “I gotta go. Chief’s office is just that way, first door on the left,” she pointed to Erin’s right to ensure she understood, then took off back towards the west wing of the hospital.

  
Erin followed Patty’s instructions to a door that read “Chief of Surgery” and figured she was in the right place. Eager to please her new employer, she took a moment to ready herself, straighten her posture, fix the wrinkles in her clothes, and plaster a smile on her face before knocking at the door.

  
“Come in,” came a rather monotonous male voice.

  
Erin turned the doorknob and pulled the door, only to realize that it was in fact a push door and prayed that the chief hadn’t noticed. The quirking of his eyebrow suggested that he did, and Erin was ready for the floor to swallow her up after a mere ten seconds of being in the room.

  
“I always do that,” she chuckled lightly to break the ice, but the chief showed no sign of amusement.

  
Still, she kept her face alight with a smile and walked with perfect posture towards the chief’s desk. The man seated behind it stood up politely, and she shook his hand.  
“Dr. Erin Gilbert,” she introduced herself, “we spoke on the phone, it’s so nice to finally meet you in person…” she wouldn’t admit that she’d forgotten the chief’s name, and had to cast a swift glance in the direction of his nameplate before finishing with, “Chief Heiss.”

 

“Good to have you on board, Dr. Gilbert,” he replied curtly, “please take a seat.”

  
She did so obediently, ignoring the discomfort that came with sitting in the lumpy red polyester seat across from the chief. Her research on the man showed him to be a genius surgeon, but his choice of red seating, olive carpeting that looked straight out of the seventies, and unevenly painted beige walls proved that his brilliance did not extend to the world of interior design.

  
The chatting between Erin and Heiss was short lived and consisted of minimal conversation between stretches of awkward silences. Heiss was a man of few words, and gave only the very basics of how things worked at RNMH before claiming to be very busy and that Erin would likely learn better by doing than hearing anyways.

  
“In fact, I’ll page our head of cardio now, and she can better acquaint you with our hospital,” he said.

  
“That sounds great. Thank you, Sir,” Erin replied, a bit too enthusiastically.

  
He proceeded to do so, then turned to his paperwork, entirely ignoring Erin’s presence. The wait was a bit awkward, with Erin unsure as to whether Heiss wanted her to wait in the hall or in her chair, but he didn’t say anything, so she didn’t move. It was several minutes, however, until a knock against the door interrupted Erin’s fiddling with a pencil she had found at the edge of Heiss’ desk.

  
“Come in,” Heiss said.

  
Erin knew it was a bit melodramatic, but as the head of cardio entered the office she couldn’t help but feel her jaw drop at the sight.

  
“Abby?” she breathed, stunned to see her best friend from her internship at Whitecross.

  
“Gilbert,” Abby greeted in return, her tone a mixture of vague amusement and annoyance as the grudge she’d had against Erin surfaced after so many years of keeping her ex-friend out of her mind.

  
“You two know each other?” Heiss asked without looking up from his paperwork.

  
He didn’t actually sound as if he cared to hear the answer, but Erin replied anyways.

  
“We did our internship at Whitecross together.”

  
“Ah,” Heiss said, and Erin thought she almost heard some form of vague interest in his tone, “well, always nice to reunite with old friends.”

  
“Sure is,” Abby said through gritted teeth, a false smile turning up the corners of her mouth but failing to reach your eyes.

  
It was silent for a moment, before Heiss finally looked up from his paperwork with a sigh. “You’re dismissed.”

  
“Right, yes,” Erin stumbled over her words as she hastily got to her feet, “it was great meeting you, Chief.”

  
She received only a grunt in reply, and turned to the door. Erin allowed Abby to lead her out of the chief's office, grateful for her polite silence as she did so. However, Erin's fortune was short-lived and she rounded on Erin the moment she shut the door behind her.

  
"Well, well, well," a smirk drew up one corner of her mouth, but there was very little amusement in her expression.

  
"It's good to see you again," Erin stated politely.

  
Abby rolled her eyes. "Cut the shit, Gilbert. Eight years without a word of apology from you and you think you can just waltz onto my service like you didn't totally screw me over back at Whitecross?"

  
Erin winced. The incident between the two a long repressed memory now bubbling to the surface in her mind. Erin remembered it vividly now, the opportunity for a one year cardio fellowship under Dr. Harold Filmore, a world renowned cardiothoracic surgeon was being offered to the residents at Whitecross. Erin and Abby, best friends at the time, had agreed to assist one another in the research necessary to compile a paper to be submitted to a panel of doctors who would then choose the winner of the fellowship. Erin, admittedly of the competitive nature, had committed herself to ensuring they both wrote fantastic papers, but desperation for the fellowship had taken over, and when she'd supplied Abby with false information to give herself a lead and eventually win herself the fellowship, well, things between them fell apart.

  
"It's been eight years, Abby," Erin attempted to reason; she'd never been one to hold grudges, and to do so for eight years just seemed silly to her, "can't we just... start fresh?"  
"Oh yeah, totally, let's just start fresh," Abby drawled sarcastically before adding with a gleam of amusement in her eye, "you're head of the UC unit today."

  
She tossed Erin a few charts just a bit too hard and they hit the taller woman forcefully in the stomach as she clumsily reached out to catch it. Ultimately, they fell to the floor and several papers scattered all over the floor.

  
"Real mature, Abby," Erin muttered as she bent down to receive the scattered charts.

  
Drawing in a deep breath, Erin attempted to focus on the positives. Sure, the head of her department hated her guts and had thrown her to the wolves on her first day, but at least the other doctors seemed friendly enough. Heiss seemed to have a stick up his ass, but Dr. Tolan had been kind, and she found herself hoping that the tall woman she'd met earlier had had the misfortune of being in the UC unit today as well. After the start to her day she'd had, Erin could use a friend.

  
After collecting her loose papers and deciding she'd worry about the random order she'd put them in later, Erin straightened up. As she did so, she was met with a figure standing a mere foot away from her, leaning up against the wall facing her, and almost had a heart attack.

  
"Come here often?" the woman said, as if she hadn't just scared the life out of Erin.

  
"I'm sorry, hello, who are you?" Erin said, masking her annoyance since she definitely didn't need another coworker on her bad side.

  
At least, Erin thought she was a coworker. The more she studied the woman, the less the woman seemed to look like a surgeon. The woman was young, with a mop of messy blonde hair that flew up in random places and looked as if it hadn't seen a comb in decades. She wore a lab coat with the hospital's logo on it and scrubs beneath it, which confirmed to Erin that she was indeed a physician, and perched atop her nose were a pair of unique yellow-tinted circular glasses. She appeared younger than Erin, probably by about eight or so years, and was rather pretty in a unique, almost goofy sort of way.

  
"Holtzmann," she replied, somehow managing to make the gesture of holding out her hand for Erin to shake look somewhat kooky.

  
"Erin Gilbert, I'm the new cardiothoracic surgeon" Erin replied, taking the other woman's hand politely.

  
"I've heard terrible things about you," Holtzmann said, flashing Erin a toothy grin.

  
"Then you must be a friend of Abby's," Erin replied. Had Abby told everyone about her?

  
Her pager went off then, reading UC, presumably from Abby. The woman had always been impatient, but when she didn't like you, she had a tendency to expect you to do what she said before she'd even said it.

  
Erin looked up to apologize for her haste and to rush off to the urgent care unit, but when she did so Holtzmann was already gone. It was odd, Erin figured, but the life of surgery was a busy one and she'd figured the other woman has simply had somewhere important to be.

  
Shrugging off the encounter with the odd physician, Erin was faced with the realization that she had absolutely no idea where urgent care even was, and with all the winding hallways and many floors of the maze-like hospital, she figured one wrong turn and she’d end up lost in the morgue.

  
“Dr. Gilbert?” came a low, Australian voice from behind her.

  
Erin turned and was faced with what might have been the most perfect human specimen she’d ever seen. She wasn’t even being melodramatic when the air left her lungs and her mouth went bone-dry at the sight of the tall, muscular, blond man. He was a resident, made clear by his pale blue scrubs, and was watching her through glasses that, strangely, appeared to lack lenses.

  
“Yes?” Erin answered politely, her voice an octave higher than usual, though if the gorgeous man had noticed, he didn’t show it.

  
“I’m serving you today,” he informed her casually.

  
Erin furrowed her brow in confusion at the statement. “You’re… You’re serving me?”

  
“Yeah,” he shrugged, unbothered by Erin’s obvious confusion, “last week I served Dr. Holtzmann, and this week I’m serving you.”

  
Erin looked at him blankly.

  
“Checking on your patients, doing rounds with you-”

  
“Oh, you’re on my service!” Erin said when the realization hit her.

  
“Isn’t that what I said?” it was his turn to look confused.

  
Erin opened her mouth to inform him that being on her service and actually serving her were rather different things, decided it not worth the effort, and promptly closed it again. Instead, she smiled warmly, holding her hand out for him to shake.

  
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dr…”

  
Erin waited for him to give her his name, but he just smiled back and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you too, Doctor!” Erin definitely didn’t giggle at the way his muscular hand gripped her’s and the way she could faintly make out the lines of his abs through scrubs that she was certain were at least two sizes too small.

  
“We’re in the urgent care unit today,” she informed him.

  
Though she expected him to be disappointed by the news- no doctor enjoyed UC- he simply took the stack of charts from her hands and began to walk. Erin followed him wordlessly, definitely not staying a few paces behind him to admire his top-notch physique. At least by following him through the hallways, she was spared the embarrassment of having to admit that she had no idea where the urgent care unit was.

  
When they ended up in the food court not long after, however, Erin sighed audibly.

  
“What are we doing here?” she asked wearily, knowing Abby was going to be all over her for her lateness.

  
“I figured since all our cases are urgent, we could stop to get a snack first,” he smiled at Erin, moving to get in line. She tried not to fawn over teeth that were unfairly straight and even.

  
“Do you… know the definition of urgent?” she asked slowly, regretting it immediately. The question was just belittling; surely a surgical resident would know the meaning of-  
“Oh, it means that it can wait,” he informed her, giving no indication that he thought of his answer as being anything but entirely correct, “I take it you’ve never read the dictionary.”

  
Erin narrowed her eyes, “you’ve read the dictionary?”

  
He tilted his head, fixing her with a confident smile. “No,” he answered simply, and Erin doesn’t push it because, quite frankly, she’s not even sure how to respond to that.  
She waits in line with Kevin and lets him get a muffin regardless. They’re late as it is and she muses that Kevin’s definition wasn’t entirely wrong; cases in the urgent care unit were rarely ever actually urgent. It’s only a few minute’s wait, and they’re off in what she hopes is the direction of UC moments later. Erin ignored the clawing in her stomach; she’d lacked the time for breakfast that morning and with all of her moving into her new apartment she hadn’t even had time for a meal the night previous.

  
Her pager beeped but she ignored it, figuring it was just Abby demanding she get her ass down to UC. Her attention was only alerted when it beeped again, seconds later, and again, and again.

Fishing it from her pocket, her pager read 911 and her eyes widened.

  
“What the hell?” she hissed.

  
Kevin questioned what the matter was through a mouthful of his blueberry muffin, but Erin had already taken off running, the sound of a nearing commotion directing her towards the page.

  
She raced up a staircase and was in what she presumed to be the hospital’s OR floor. She took only a second to take in her surroundings and collect herself, but it was a second too long and something rammed into her from behind, knocking her forward onto her hands and knees.

  
Erin scrambled to her feet, spinning around to face her assailant. It was Holtzmann, the kooky blonde she’d met earlier, only her demeanor was far different now. No longer was she leaning up against the wall, speaking in a drawl that was somehow both extremely suave and totally corny simultaneously. Now, her eyes were wide with urgency and she was panting, looking as if she’d just run all across the hospital with the defibrillator she’d just rammed into Erin. They locked eyes, but neither bothered with apologies. Holtzmann simply continued on her way, sprinting towards a door marked OR 4, wheeling the defibrillator along with her, and Erin followed hastily behind, her resident nowhere in sight.

  
She entered the room, pushing her way through numerous nurses and interns to get a better look at the situation. Holtzmann was firing up the defibrillator while Abby was performing compressions on the patient, a male appearing to be in his early thirties.

  
“What do we have?” Erin asked instinctively, shifting into “doctor mode”

  
Abby didn’t answer, instead looking up at Erin, appearing not to have noticed her entrance, with absolute rage burning in her eyes.

  
“What do we have? Are you kidding, Erin? What the hell were you thinking!” she yelled, interrupting herself as she called out “clear!” and shocked the patient, whose flatline remained unchanged.

  
“Charge to three hundred,” Abby ordered, then continued scolding Erin. “Patient reports severe chest pains and numbness in the left arm- clear!- and you leave him to wait for half an hour?”

  
She shocked the patient again, but to no avail. Erin could see the frustration etched into Abby’s features, and she glanced up at Erin as if expecting a rebuttal to her scolding, but Erin remained silent. Abby definitely didn’t need any more stress on her.

  
“Charge to five hundred,” she said.

  
“Dr. Yates-” one of the nurses started, but Abby fixed her with a death glare and the young man immediately quieted.

  
Obediently, Holtzmann fired up the machine, and with another cry of “clear!” Abby pressed the pads of the defibrillator to her patient’s chest, and time seemed to slow as the shock tore through the man’s body.

  
Silence followed. One beat. Two beats. Nothing to fill the void but the heart monitor’s steady beep. It went on and on and on and Erin willed with all her might for it to just shut up, but no one moved to silence it. Instead, they stood, at least ten people crowded all around the newly deceased man, lying still, but not peaceful, atop a cot matted with his own sweat, and still the blaring beep of the flatline refused to cease.

  
“Time of death, 10:22,” Abby said flatly, and Holtzmann moved to quiet the heart monitor.

  
Everything was silent then, the nurses filing out of the room and leaving only Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann to stand over the man whose death could so easily have been prevented.

  
“Abby,” Erin started, stumbling over her words and shaking all over, “I’m so sorry- I didn’t- I just got held up and it was- it’s just the urgent care unit- I didn’t think-”  
Her incomprehensible babbling was silenced by Abby’s steady glare. No longer was there the flame of outrage lighting her irises. Now, she stared at Erin as if she didn’t even know the lanky woman she’d once called her best friend. She stared at her as if she were a total stranger, as if she were a murderer.

  
“This is your fault, Gilbert,” she said icily, and Erin felt paralyzed by the force of Abby’s gaze, “I just want you to know that.”

  
Erin’s throat felt tight as she looked between the dead man below her and the enraged woman across from her. “Abby, I-” but Abby cut her off.

  
“Get the fuck out of my OR.”


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! Between school and work I haven't had any time to post, but chapter two is here at last, and hopefully the next interval won't be so lengthy! I hope you enjoy, comments and kudos are of course always appreciated <3

Hospitals, Erin Gilbert has found over the years, are quite a bit like high school.

  
You screw one thing up? You’re on the outs. You piss off one of the populars? You’re out. No one wants to be around you anymore, and then you’re sat all by yourself at a table at lunch, ignored save for the murmured gossip shared when people think you’re out of earshot and the almost pitying glances shot in your direction.

  
The thing is, Erin was one of the populars. Not in high school, of course; there she was just the shy nerd with a grand total of two-and-a-half friends, but at Whitecross. Popularity in hospitals were determined by a mixture of skill, smarts, and the willingness to simultaneously be a shark and the friendliest doctor on the floor, and Erin had done all of that perfectly. She was a surgeon, which of course naturally put her at the top of hospital hierarchy, but she was even loved amongst her fellow physicians. Her superiors loved her obedience and diligence, her coworkers loved her for her willingness to help them out before their boards, and the nurses loved her because she always stopped to say hello and ask them how their day was.

  
But this wasn’t Whitecross, and Erin had let a man die because she’d allowed her resident to wait in line to buy a muffin, so she didn’t think she’d be back on top of the popularity pyramid any time soon. Even Patty, the friendly physician she’d first met had dropped her wide grin and peppy tone with her and now was barely anything more than curt. She was too kind a person to outright ignore her, but it was clear to Erin that news of the incident had made rounds through the hospital and reached Patty’s ears.

  
“Hey boss!” came a familiar Australian drawl, and Erin looked up from where she’d been drawing shapes in her mashed potatoes to see her resident taking a seat across from her.

   
She didn’t greet him back, and realized that under any other circumstances she’d have kicked him out of that seat and told him to go find some other resident buddies to hang out with, because what self-respecting attending eats lunch with a second year resident? It was a hospital’s version of what modern high schoolers would call “social suicide”.  
But she didn’t tell him to leave, didn’t say anything at all because this wasn’t any other circumstance and, for the moment, it looked like the… less that academically proficient doctor was her only friend. Besides, the view of his blue-grey eyes and chiseled jaw weren’t exactly putting a damper on her mood, so where was the harm?

  
Her stomach let out a low growl, protesting the lack of food she’d eaten despite the full tray in front of her. Lifting a forkful of mashed potatoes which, for the record, tasted more like high school cafeteria mush than actual mashed potatoes, she cast a glance to her left. Sat at another of the small, round tables, were Abby, Patty, and Holtzmann. Two of the three women looked rather serious, speaking intently about something Erin couldn’t hear from where she sat, while Holtzmann lounged with the utmost relaxation. Combat boot-clad feet laid across the empty chair beside her, and Erin let herself be momentarily appalled by the poor work attire the blonde woman was clad in, and that was without the striking pendant hung around her neck; a large U with a screw piercing diagonally through the middle. Clever, but highly unprofessional.

  
Perhaps Erin had been staring, or perhaps Holtzmann was simply more aware of her surroundings than her lax nature would suggest, but she craned her neck a full ninety degrees and caught Erin’s eyes, not quite smiling in the goofy, friendly way she had when they’d met, but allowing her lips to tug upwards into an almost-smirk, winking at her before turning back to observe her friends conversing in front of her.

  
Erin’s face definitely didn’t heat up, not even a little bit, but she was thankful that Kevin was focused enough on the sandwich in his hands that he didn’t see the slight rosy tint to her cheeks, but even if he had been looking he definitely wouldn’t have noticed anything because Erin absolutely was not blushing. She also was most certainly not dwelling on the fact that she was not blushing, because Erin Gilbert was a professional, and professionals did not blush when their coworkers winked at them.

  
Her pager went off suddenly, and she was thankful to have an excuse to get out of the cafeteria which had grown suddenly too stuffy for her liking. However, her gratitude was short lived when she realized that her intern, whose name she’d still failed to learn, was also reaching for his beeping pager. Beeping began to fill the sudden silence of the cafeteria, and from their pockets she saw Abby, Holtzmann, Patty, and several other attendings, residents, and interns whose acquaintances she’d yet to make retrieve their pagers with matching looks of a mix of distress and curiosity, each pager revealing the simple instructions of a trauma.

  
She caught Abby’s eye as she moved to rush out of the cafeteria, and there was no malice in them. The feud between them was gone, or at least paused, as the focus shifted from their petty dispute to whatever horrible trauma had managed to alert half the hospital’s staff. Moving as a tide of surgeons through the wide halls of the hospital, Erin shoved her way through the hurricane of physicians and managed to snatch one of the rapidly depleting yellow trauma gowns, throwing it on as she followed Abby through the doors where almost twenty ambulances had pulled up, more on their way Erin was sure, with frantic paramedics running to and fro wheeling bloodied patients, Erin barely able to tell which had already died and which were still alive through the screaming both from the injured and the doctors.

  
“What the hell happened?” Abby exclaimed, rushing to help wheel a young woman soaked in blood, both legs positioned at unnatural angles and eyes squeezed shut in pain.  
A tall brunette woman at the side of another patient, presumably a trauma surgeon based on the skill and ease with which she directed the EMT’s and moved from patient to patient responded to Abby’s inquiry. “Head-on collision between two double-decker buses,” she called over the roar of the injured, screaming to the heavens as if it would erase the pain and panic they were undergoing, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  
“Jesus Christ,” Erin muttered under her breath, snapping out of her awestruck momentary paralysis and hurriedly approaching two EMT’s who were unloading a newly arrived patient from the back of an ambulance.

  
“Angelica Michaels,” reported a young paramedic as they began to wheel her through the hospital doors; she was shorter than Erin, with light brown skin and frenzied eyes, clearly as stunned by the horrendous accident as Erin was, “twenty-three year old female, she was at the front of the bus, it topple over after the collision and she was pinned underneath, took us twenty minutes to get her out.”

  
Erin nodded, finding an empty spot in the ER to situate her patient as she took the chart from the younger woman, who rushed back outside immediately as she did so.  
“Angelica?” Erin tried for the injured woman’s attention gently, repeating her name with a slightly raised voice when she was met with no response.  
Nurses around her hurriedly hooked Angelica up to various monitors, and the readings Erin were met with were less than pleasant. “BP sixty over thirty,” a nurse informed her as they finished hooking Angelica up to the monitors, “and dropping.”

  
Erin cursed under her breath, trying for the woman’s attention again. “Angelica?” when the woman opened one eye slowly, the other lagging behind, Erin spoke again, “Angelica? Can you hear me?”

  
The bloodied woman let out a low moan, some garbled words thrown in there as well that sounded like something along the lines of “wha’ happ’n’d?”  
“Angelica? I’m Doctor Gilbert, you were in an accident, can you tell me what hurt?” Erin said, shining a light into her patient’s eyes, pleased when her pupils were responsive.  
“M’back… ribs…” Angelica groaned, and that’s when Erin noticed it.

  
Blood staining the white cot of Angelica’s bed was wet and sticky, pooling when the bed dipped under her lower abdomen. The woman had been pinned by her chest, and while her broken ribs were made obvious as Erin pressed her hands gingerly to the woman’s side, this new blood was entirely unaccounted for.

  
“Was a big piece o’ glass in my back… Pulled it out…” Angelica managed to say, before her eyes rolled back and the shrieking of the heart monitor beside her sent Erin into a frenzy.

  
“Shit!” she hissed, followed by many repetitions of the curse as she rapidly moved to check for a pulse, frantically trying to retrieve the woman’s consciousness to no avail.  
“Someone get her into an OR stat!” she screamed over the roar of working physicians, turning to the nearest intern and ordering him to call code blue.

  
Immediately two interns and a nurse were at her side, and without hesitation Erin climbed onto the cot to begin CPR as she was wheeled to the elevator, straddling Angelica’s hips as she uttered pleas to the woman to start breathing again.

  
“What the hell happened?” Abby approached them as they got to the elevator, an intern frantically pushing the button, his foot tapping anxiously as he waited for the doors to open.

  
Still hurriedly trying to coerce Angelica’s heart into beating again, Erin turned to face a wide-eyed Abby. “Three broken ribs, five bruised, and she removed a piece of shrapnel on her own. She going to die of blood loss if I don’t get her to an OR,” at this, the intern pressed the button again, as if it would will the elevator to move faster.

  
“No shit, since you’re letting her bleed out underneath you! Get off and help me flip her, we need pressure on that wound!” Abby argued, extending her arm as if about to physically shove Erin off if she refused.

  
“Didn’t any of you call code blue!” Erin growled at the interns by her side, looking on anxiously as if paralyzed by the scene unfolding in front of them.

  
“Hello?” Abby yelled, visibly aggravated, “she’s losing blood Erin, get off!”

  
“Dr. Yates! All the blood in the world won’t mean anything if I don’t get this woman breathing again, so if you could kindly shut up and let me do my job-” Erin snarled, interrupted by the ding of the elevator and without a moment’s hesitation, she and Angelica were wheeled in and the doors shut, Abby left staring at her, eyes wide like she’d seen a ghost.

  
It was, admittedly, way out of character for Erin to snap like that, especially at her superior. Normally, she was as cool as could be under pressure, and it wasn’t as if she was especially attached to this patient, so she hadn’t the slightest idea why she was so worked up about ensuring that this woman survived, and doing it her way. She didn’t have a moment to spare with thoughts about her underlying need to prove herself or recovering from the tragic mess-up from earlier that day, as before she knew it, the elevator doors had opened once again and she was being wheeled in the direction of OR 4.

  
The doors were flung open and Erin was off the cot as the nurses got to work, laying out the instruments and hooking Angelica up to the monitors as Erin reached for a pair of scrubs, turning to see the interns looking at her incredulously.

  
“No time to scrub,” she explained, “who’s got steady hands?”

  
They both immediately raised their hands, but the one on the left, a stout man with wide brown eyes and a stubbly beard was first, so she tossed him a pair of scrubs. “What’s your name?”

 

“Zach Woods” he stated, and Erin nodded.

  
“Great, you’re assisting,” she told him, and without time to revel in the fact that she’d absolutely just made the presumably first-year intern’s day, she was clad in her scrubs and at the tableside.

  
Erin reached for the defibrillator that had been wheeled up beside her, ordering the nurse to charge it to one-hundred as she rubbed the pads together.

 

“Clear!” she pressed the pads to Angelica’s chest, growling when she was met with no response from the flatlining monitor.

 

“Charge to two-hundred” she ordered, a bead of sweat running down the back of her neck as she set the pads to the woman’s chest again.

  
“We’ve got a pulse,” Woods informed her, a small smile tugging at his lips at the victory.

  
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Erin told him, hiding her own satisfaction. Turning to the nurses, she spoke again, “help me flip her over.”

  
They were positioned immediately at opposite sides of the table, and after a count of three Angelica was lifted and dropped somewhat ungracefully onto her stomach, revealing the full extent of the gash on her back.

  
It was thankfully thin, no more than a centimeter or two in diameter at its widest point in the middle, but it was the length that concerned Erin. It stretched from the base of Angelica’s tailbone up to the small of her back, and blood streamed out of it with no sign of slowing anytime soon.

 

“Get some towels in here,” Erin ordered her intern, who grabbed some immediately from the nurses and began applying them to the wound.

  
“What are we gonna do?” he asked, looking mildly sick at all of the blood.

  
“Control the bleeding and close,” Erin said simply, “I’m not concerned about the depth, the wound was only an inch or so deep, didn’t penetrate anything major, and she hasn’t lost enough blood yet for me to really be concerned, which means her cardiac arrest was caused by something else. We’re going to have to get her stabilized and then we’ll send her up for a chest CT to figure out what the issue is.”

  
It took less than five minutes to stabilize the bleeding, much to Erin’s relief, and she was able to close with the only issue being her intern’s persistent requesting to be allowed to close. Erin admired his moxy, but was appalled by the informality and almost nagging-like way he asked to participate. Really, under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have let a first-year intern anywhere near one of her trauma patients, much less assist her in the OR.

  
When she’d finished, Woods backed away from the table, about to pull his gloves from his hands when Erin held up a hand, “hold on,” she ordered him, peering around her patient’s back to get a look at her left ribcage.

  
The bruises there blossomed in shades of red and purple Erin had never seen in all her years as a surgeon, and though she didn’t do much work on broken ribs, she new the especially extravagant bruising near the center of the ribcage wasn’t just any break. She ran her hand along the ribs tenderly, wincing at the deformity larger than any break she’d ever worked on. At the steady rise of Angelica’s chest, the particular segment of the ribcage upon which Erin laid her hand sunk inwards, confirming her suspicions.  
“Flail chest,” she mumbled before turning to her intern. “Page Dr. Holtzmann, there’s no way we’re finishing here with her ribs in that condition.”

  
It took Dr. Holtzmann a mere five minutes to arrive, but she was particularly meticulous with her scrubbing, taking another full five minutes to do so before stepping in, meeting Erin’s gaze. “Whadda we got?” she asked, stepping up to inspect the patient.

  
“Blunt chest trauma, several breaks in the left ribcage, paradoxical breathing, sudden cardiac arrest,” Erin listed her observations as if she were reading them for her boards, Dr. Holtzmann watching her intently and nodding, pondering to herself.

 

“Sounds like flail chest,” the blonde doctor stated, and pretty bad from the looks of it. Let’s get her flipped over.”

  
The nurses did so as Dr. Holtzmann ran a hand up and down the ribs, her eyes closed behind yellow spectacles as she mapped the injuries in her mind. Erin turned to leave, figuring the orthopaedic surgeon was more than capable of handling a run-of-the-mill flail chest case, when Holtzmann called out to her.

  
“Won’t you be staying to assist?” she asked, looking at Erin over her glasses which now sat perched atop her nose librarian-style.

  
Erin chuckled, “I hardly think you’ll need a cardiothoracic surgeon here,” she pointed out.

  
The other surgeon gave a simple shrug, flashing a grin at Erin, “nah, but it’s a pretty lengthy surgery, so I won’t mind the company, if you’re not busy, that is.”

  
Erin realized Holtzmann’s offer for what it was- and arm extended to her offering friendship in spite of her earlier mishap. Figuring she didn’t have anything to lose, and with her pager having remained silent, she probably wouldn’t be missed by surgeons who didn’t even know she existed.

  
“Sure,” she answered with a small smile of her own, pulling her surgical mask back up to cover her face just as Holtzmann did, “why not?”

  
Dr. Holzmann grinned even wider behind her mask as Erin stepped up to the table, and from there they worked in silence save for Dr. Holtzmann’s brief orders to her or one of the nurses. Though Erin wasn’t exactly great company, never speaking unprompted, Holtzmann, who asked for the playing of eighties rock music over the speakers after ten minutes of silent work, hardly seemed to mind. She worked with a laser focus and Erin let herself be transfixed by the woman’s work. Her fingers moved languidly, tools placed with precision, each movement calculated and exact. It was almost artistic, the way Holtzmann healed, like magic slowly bringing shattered bones together. Erin watched, not for the purpose of learning or note-taking like she normally would, but for the sheer enjoyment of watching one of the most skilled surgeons she’d ever seen make every move as if she’d practiced it a thousand times.

  
Two hours passed before they’d finished, but if you asked Erin, she’d say it felt more like ten minutes. Dr. Holtzmann let out a puff of air as she finished the last suture, and her astounding focus and artistic precision disappeared into a childlike fist pump and a loud “whoop” of victory.

  
The two went to wash their hands, Dr. Holtzmann smiling at her as she removed her mask.

  
“So, Dr. Gilbert, how’d you like the show?”

  
“It was incredible!” Erin gushed, unable to hold back her excitement at one of the most eloquent orthopaedic surgeries she’d ever witnessed, “You’re an amazing surgeon, Dr. Holtzmann,” she added with a bit more professionalism.

  
“Bet you’re not so bad yourself,” Dr. Holtzmann replied, turning to wink at Erin before focusing back on her scrubbing, “if you look past the whole killing-a-guy-on-your-first-day thing.”

  
The remark should have been more hurtful than it was, but a mere glance at the blonde surgeon informed Erin that it was meant with no malice, and surprising herself, she let out a soft chuckled. “Yeah, that was pretty bad.”

  
They finished their scrubbing in a comfortable silence, Erin done first, only stopping just in front of the door to speak to her fellow physician once more. “See you around, Dr. Holtzmann,” she said, lingering a bit without reason.

  
Dr. Holtzmann looked up, smirking at Erin as she shut off the tap, “Just Holtz is fine,” she said.

  
Erin nodded, pushing the door open and disappearing down the hall. When the door had shut and Erin was well in the elevator, Holtzmann stripped herself of her surgical gown and smiled to herself, definitely looking forward to seeing the poised cardiothoracic surgeon around.


	3. III

Roused from a much-needed slumber by the incessant beeping of her phone, Erin emitted a loud, despairing groan and reached over to shut it off. She hit the phone a bit too hard, causing it to tumble to the floor. Erin rolled her eyes and bent down to pick it up, stretching out her back as she did so. From its position on the dull beige carpet, the numbers 3:37 illuminated the phone screen mockingly. 

“Shouldn’t even be legal to be up this early,” Erin mumbled as she got to her feet, searching the floor through a series of undignified kicks until she located her slippers and managed to slide them on.

She narrowed her eyes, realizing that there was no reason for her phone to have woken her at such an obscure time in the night, especially when her shift wasn’t due to begin until 7. The beeping came again, and she quickly realized that it wasn’t coming from the phone in her hand, but from her pager.

Fumbling in the dark for the small device, she glanced quickly at it and sighed. It beeped once more in her hand, its small rectangular screen lighting up a cyan that was nearly blinding in the early morning. Figuring it was in her best interest to start making friends, Erin drowsily made her way into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee.

It was 3:56 by the time she was showered, dressed, and semi presentable. She stood in the mirror of her apartment’s bathroom, irritatedly eyeing the bags under her eyes which her concealer had failed to hide. Her hair was flat, bangs sat limp and desperately needing a trim and they began to drape over her eyes. A quick application of pale pink blush failed to illuminate her features, and Erin took a moment to wonder if she had always appeared so drab.

This was the life of a doctor, though, and Erin never once regretted trading in a healthy amount of sleep for the job of a lifetime. She loved saving lives, loved meeting people going through the worst times of their lives and having the opportunities to turn things around for them. The money was simply an added bonus; she’d more than happily heal for free.

She was out the door by 4:00, and settled into her car with a rapidly cooling mug of coffee nestled into her lap. The drive was unburdened by much traffic, and Erin let herself hum along to some old Doris Day song quietly accompanying her through the radio. 

It was peaceful, a peace Erin rarely experienced. For the majority of the week she worked, and when she wasn’t working she slept (in her own home if she should be so lucky) or ran errands. There simply wasn’t time for leisure, no time for hobbies, or outings, or friends, and certainly not romance. She hadn’t seen a man romantically since med school, though she rarely regretted it. Much as the dreamers of the world may wish to deny it, one always had to choose between success or family, there was no way to have both and truly make the most of either. Erin had made her choice, and it had served her far better than any man ever could.

The second she stepped foot into the hospital, though, any semblance of relaxation evaporated. Patients, physicians, and concerned relatives bustled around almost frantically. There was rarely any order in a hospital, and Erin would admit that lack of organization wasn’t her favourite part of the job. It was part of the reason she’d become a surgeon, rather than any other medical specialist. The OR was clean, controlled, and quiet. Surgery was easy, and Erin found that she quite liked people better when they were unconscious.

“Boop”

The noise was accompanied by a finger lightly pressing against the tip of her nose, and Erin recoiled immediately. 

In front of her stood Dr. Holtzmann, a goofy smile laid out across her relaxed features, and hand still stretched out in front of her.

“You look like you saw a ghost,” Holtzmann said, bringing her outstretched arm back to rest in the pocket of her lab coat.

Erin’s eyebrows were furrowed at the odd action of nose-booping from her coworker, but attributed it to the orthopaedic surgeons quirkiness and decided against verbally acknowledging it.

“Sorry, I’m kinda tired.”

Holtzmann grinned, “I’ve been told I’m pretty good at helping girls wake up,” she said slyly.

Erin blinked. Was the blonde physician flirting with her? She cleared the thought out of her head immediately, offering to sleep with her seemed a bit up front, even for someone as exuberant as Dr. Holtzmann. 

The shit-eating grin Erin was met with clued her into the fact that she’d said that last part out loud.

“My dear Doctor Gilbert, you wound me,” she mimed a chest wound, pressing her left hand to her heart, “if I were planning to court you, I’d be much more subtle. I was referring to coffee.”

Erin’s cheeks flushed a deep red, and her embarrassed mind faltered for a moment as she tried to come up with a response.

“Right, um, of course,” she stuttered, “well, Dr. Lynch needs a consult, so, uh, I guess I’d better go… there.”

“Guess you’d better,” Holtzmann replied, smile never leaving her face.

There was a beat of silence, and Erin opened her mouth to speak again before Holtzmann beat her to it.

“You have no idea who Dr. Lynch is, do ya?”

“Or where to find him,” Erin sighed.

“Well,  _ she _ will probably be up in radiology. I heard she had some huge case and, knowing her, she’ll stare at those x-rays all day ‘til she figures it out.”

There was yet another beat of silence, before Holtzmann seemed to realize that Erin also had no clue where radiology was.

“Third floor, turn left off the elevator and it’s at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you, Dr. Holtzmann,” Erin said curtly, still a bit shaken from her earlier mix-up with the younger doctor.

Holtzmann gave a quick two fingered salute, and turned off in the direction of the hospital food court.

 

Holtzmann would turn out to have been correct about the location of this Dr. Lynch. In fat, now that Erin was seeing her, she recognized the tall brunette woman as the trauma surgeon who had been at the forefront of doctors rushing out to help the bus victims the night previous. From the smattering of coffee cups around the room and the restless look upon the doctor’s face, Erin figured she probably hadn’t slept since then.

Erin slowly crossed the threshold into the room, unnoticed by Dr. Lynch who was pacing the room relentlessly, hands folded behind her back as she took in the many x-rays hung upon the walls.

Erin cleared her throat, and Dr. Lynch turned to face her only for a moment, eyeing her with a look Erin couldn’t quite decipher before turning back to her work.

“You’re late,” she pointed out.

Her voice wasn’t harsh like the chief’s, or downright venomous like Abby’s. It was matter-of-fact, like she wasn’t quite angry about Erin’s lateness, but was simply pointing out the fat that she was.

“Sorry,” Erin replied, “I was asleep.” 

Dr. Lynch let out a small huff. “I suppose I should have expected as much,” she said, turning around to face Erin, “from what I’ve heard, lateness is kind of your thing, isn’t it?”

Erin’s fingers flexed in the way they often did when she was uncomfortable, but she decided against a retort, hardly needing more enemies.

“What are we looking at?” she asked instead.

“73 year old male, suffered an anterior myocardial infarction four years ago-”

“Treated with?”

“Stent to the left anterior descending artery. He was rushed in an hour ago, his wife claims his shortness of breath has been getting worse lately and that he passed out while driving.”

“Have you performed an angiography?”

“Results just came in, and I want your input on what it could be.”

“Have you taken a look?” Erin asked, stepping up to the x-rays and narrowing her eyes.

“Yes, but I’m not cardio, so I wanted a second opinion before I started jumping to conclusions.”

Several moments passed in silence, as Erin moved from one x-ray to the next, pausing every so often to scribble down some notes in the pad of paper she often kept with her. After a while of becoming lost in her analysis, Dr. Lynch sighed.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your process or anything, Dr. Gilbert, but we don’t exactly have time to waste.”

Erin looked up sadly, putting down her pen. “Severe triple vessel disease,” she said, “I was trying to figure out if it could possibly be anything else, but with that much blockage in all three of the main coronary arteries… I just don’t see what else it could be.”

Dr. Lynch nodded slowly, “Poor guy.”

The sound of a door unlocking turned both women’s attention towards the entrance, and from the doorway Abby stepped into the room. Her glasses were hanging precariously close to the tip of her nose, a cup of coffee dangled from her teeth where a vice-like grip kept in in place, and she was holding a stack of what appeared to be a mix of files and x-rays. She attempted to say something, but it came out as a muffled garble of speech. Quickly, she dropped her papers ungracefully onto the table beside which Erin stood, and removed the paper cup from her mouth.

“Good morning, Dr. Yates,” Dr. Lynch greeted the shorter woman, not entirely friendly but not with the same monotony with which she spoke to Erin.

“Morning, Dr. Lynch,” a few seconds passed before she added, “Dr. Gilbert.”

Erin just nodded in greeting, not wanting to push it.

“Just came in to review a mysterious heart attack case. Radiology  _ just  _ got my x-rays in now, even though I asked for them an hour ago,” Abby huffed irritably, “how typical, honestly. They’ve got the easiest job in the world and they still spend more time jerking off in there than actually working.”

Dr. Lynch looked mildly disturbed by the image Abby had given her, but retained her composure and simply began to gather her scattered coffee cups. “Dr. Gilbert and I are just about finished in here, so the room is all yours, Doctor.”

“Christ, look at that blockage,” Abby said, a strange sort of awe in her tone as she walked towards the x-rays strung up on the wall, “How’re you two gonna tackle that monster?”

“We’re not,” Erin replied, tentatively handing Abby a copy of the patient’s file, “with a history like that, any surgery would be way more risk than it’s worth.”

Abby took the file, but otherwise seemed to ignore Erin. Instead, she turned to Dr. Lynch, skimming over the file before pushing her glasses up on her nose. 

“If it were me, I’d go for a triple vessel coronary angioplasty.”

Erin sighed, “Dr. Yates,” she began curtly, “if you take a look at that file, you’ll see the patient underwent an angioplasty fourteen months ago, and it was unsuccessful.”

Abby shot her a glare. “Yeah, at North Hope. I wouldn’t trust any of those dumbasses to give me an appendectomy. But fine, what about a bypass?”

Erin bit back another sigh. “He had that done too, down in Greenville. A blood clot broke loose just after the surgery and caused his heart attack.”

Erin awkwardly attempted to lean over Abby’s shoulder to point at the section of the file which relayed this information, but was swatted away by a very irritated Abby.

“Look, I don’t know what things are like in cardio, but here in trauma, we have to move fast or people will die. Do you two have a solution or not? Because if not, I need to go let my patient know he’s going to die so that I can move on to the three other patients he almost killed when he passed out in that car,” Dr. Lynch spoke tiredly.

“There’s nothing, within reason, for us to do,” Erin said softly.

Dr. Lynch nodded and made to leave, when Abby spoke again, her tone venomous.

“Just like you to give up, Gilbert.”

“Excuse me?” Erin replied hotly.

“You know, the Erin I knew during our residency would have been so excited by a case like this! She’d be in the library, reading every damn journal she could find until she figured out the most insane yet somehow sensible idea,” Abby huffed, taking a moment to relax herself before speaking again, her cold tone a stark contrast to her previous fire, “If you see the old Erin around, tell her to come find me, because new Erin is kinda pathetic.”

“What would you have me do, Abby? You’ve read the file, or, rather, had me explain it to you. You  _ know  _ there’s nothing else to do. If your vision wasn’t so blurred by ten year old grudges, maybe you’d be able to see that,” Erin tried her best to maintain her composure, but the shorter woman was starting to get under her skin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Erin noticed Dr. Lynch slipping out of the room, clearly having seen enough of their unpleasant feud.

“There’s always something else to do!”

“Well if you’ve got any suggestions, I would be delighted to hear them!” Erin scoffed, her voice getting louder as the argument persisted.

A beat of silence, and then, “triple surgical ventricular reconstruction.”

Erin barked out a laugh, which echoed off the walls of the suddenly quiet room. “Right. Look, my shift starts in three hours and I haven’t slept since yesterday morning, so if you’ll excuse me-”

“I’m serious, Erin. This is how we save this guy’s life!” Erin noticed Abby smiling excitedly at her for the first time in several years.

“Abby-” Erin began, but her boss cut her off yet again.

“Look at this!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the x-ray of the patient’s heart, “look how enlarged the heart is, probably thanks to that heart attack. I go in with an SVR, you do a CABG to ensure maximized blood flow. We repair the clogged valves with a bypass-”

“I already told you,” Erin cut in, “a bypass has already been done, and it didn’t work.”

“Because the dickheads in Greenville were only focused on the valves, and not the heart as a whole! If we restore the heart to its original size, we have a better chance at success with the bypass.”

“Abby, please. He’s a 73 year old man with more heart conditions than I have fingers. He’s tried surgery, medication, physical therapy, hell he’s probably been to a spiritual healer at this point. He’s going to die, whether it’s out in a bed in a couple of days, or tonight in an OR. I’m sorry, but no. I’m not operating.”

It was Abby’s turn to laugh, a short, sharp guffaw steaming with sarcasm and anger. “I’ll never understand how you can just stand to the side when you have the chance to save someone, Erin. How do you do it?”

“It would be at least a ten hour surgery, Abby. The man will never survive that long and intense a surgery. Besides, with the mortality rate of open heart surgery on young, otherwise healthy individuals, we’re basically tripling it with this patient. He’s not going to survive three valve bypasses  _ and  _ and SVR.”

Abby closed her eyes, not saying a word for several moments. Erin stood still, almost afraid to breathe too loud in the sudden silence. After a few minutes, a wry smile played at the corners of Abby’s lips, and she spoke in a harsh, quiet tone. “So that’s what this is about, huh? I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. You really are the same person you were when you fucked me over back at Whitecross.”

Erin straightened up, narrowing her eyes at the shorter woman. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied evenly.

“How can you be so selfish? I get prioritizing mortality rate when you’re a fifth year resident but god, Erin, you’re an attending and you  _ still  _ think that the only thing that matters is your reputation. You know, there’s more to life than how many stars you have on Yelp!”

“It’s not selfish, it’s practical,” she said simply, which only fueled Abby further.

“You really believe that your reputation as a surgeon is more important than the life of another human being?” Abby instigated.

“Of course not, and if I felt that there was any way to practically save this patient-”

“But there is! And I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you enough or whatever so that you could believe in yourself, but if you’d look past your ego for five seconds you’d see that my idea  _ will  _ work.”

“I’m not doing the surgery, Abby. Good luck finding someone insane enough who will.”

With that, Erin spun and walked out. Abby called something after her, but she couldn’t seem to hear it over the pounding of her head and the storm of thoughts in her mind. 

 

After a couple of hours spent lying in an uncomfortable bed in the staff’s sleeping quarters, Erin finally gave up on sleep and threw on her labcoat. A glance at her cellphone notified her that her shift wasn’t due to begin for twenty minutes, and figured she’d grab something quick to eat despite her lack of hunger before going on rounds to meet some patients whose surgeries Abby had assigned her. She wondered if Abby would have her forced to perform scut for her shift today, though, after the rather volatile argument they’d had.

She sat down alone at a food court table, picking at the blueberry muffin she’d grabbed unenthusiastically, but finishing her coffee rather quickly. She sighed to herself, quietly enough that she figured nobody in the crowded area had noticed. A few moments later, when the tall form of someone else slid into the seat across from her, she would find herself mistaken.

“Rough day, baby?” the woman, who Erin quickly recognized as Dr. Tolan, asked.

Erin shrugged noncommittally. “Dr. Tolan,” she greeted politely.

“You’ve been here for, like, two days,” Dr. Tolan pointed out, “How’d you manage to get Abby to hate you so fast?”

Erin buried her face in her hands. “Does everyone know about that?” she asked.

Dr. Tolan laughed, “Twitter has nothing on this hospital.”

Erin groaned melodramatically, dropping her head and arms down onto the table. Dr. Tolan reached across, lightly touching the cardio surgeon’s arm in support.

“Do you think I’m selfish?” Erin asked.

“I think Abby might be right about you worrying too much about what other people think.”

Erin peeked up at Dr. Tolan, still not bothering to lift her head. “Mortality is how people measure whether or not you’re a good surgeon,” she pointed out, “my low rate is the whole reason I got into this hospital.”

“Baby, you got into this hospital because you’re a smart woman and a damn good surgeon. I mean, seriously, you think my mortality rate is low? I’ve done more trials than I can count and, spoiler alert, pretty much none of them worked.”

Erin chuckled softly. “I can’t do a surgery on a man I know is going to die.”

“But can you say with complete certainty that he will? I mean, Abby explained her plan to me, and it’s pretty solid.”

“It’s a good plan, but the man is already at death’s door. Doesn’t he deserve to cross over with his family and friends around him, instead of in some cold, sterile OR.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me your concern for how the man crosses over into some afterlife is actually your main concern.”

Erin sheepishly glanced up to meet Dr. Tolan’s disbelieving eyes, but the tall woman had a kind smile gracing her lips.

“Abby’s going in there with or without you, Gilbert. I don’t know what’s going on with you two or what kind of history you have, but I think you should be in there with her, because you’re a damn good surgeon and if anyone can pull off one of Abby’s crazy-ass plans, it’s the pair of you.”

Erin blushed slightly at the compliment, casting her gaze at her feet. “Thanks, Dr. Tolan,” she said sincerely.

Dr. Tolan got to her feet, “Patty’s fine,” she replied as she made to leave.

Erin was alone again, but as she finished her muffin with much more vigour than before, she felt a new fire of determination light within her.

If Abby was surprised when Erin began scrubbing beside her, she didn’t show it. In fact, she didn’t speak at all. They washed their arms in silence, pulled on their gloves in silence, and yet there was a strange familiarity to it all. Each fell into step as they began their work, Abby on one side of the operating table as the lead surgeon, and Erin on the other, facing her former best friend. 

Abby verbally affirmed the readiness of everyone in the OR besides Erin, a ritual she had picked up from the cardio attending she and Erin favoured back at Whitecross. When everyone had confirmed that the patient was set to begin, Abby cast a glance quickly at the monitor, then requested a scalpel. It was handed to her hastily and she twirled it a bit in her fingers before looking up at Erin. 

She handed the instrument over, and Erin took it with uncertain hands. They stood for a moment in silence, before Abby spoke up.

Erin made the first cut, deep and calculated, and as blood began to flow from the inflicted wound, she gave herself a moment to wonder whether this surgery would be her greatest success, or largest mistake.

Ten hours would fly by like lightning, and Erin would soon find that the surgery would be both.

**Author's Note:**

> All medical stuff within the fic comes from binge-watching Grey's Anatomy and a few Google searches, so feel free to let me know if anything is wrong! You can also follow me at daddytrudeaus . tumblr . com and we can geek out over Holtzbert together! Thank you for reading, kudos and comments mean the world to me and are incredibly appreciated :)


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